I had watched quite a number of movies and tv shows, a good majority of them action oriented.
As a result, I wasn't totally clueless on the topic of breaking necks. After all, it was just strangling with extra steps. That is… if those shows and movies where villains snapped necks with only one hand were to be believed.
Honestly, with my strength, I could see myself doing same… I think. I was strong enough to lift a grown man above me with just an arm. Breaking his neck afterwards using the same hand shouldn't be too hard.
Right?
Hmmm. Anyways, my goal hadn't changed. This kill needed to be perfect. And I knew just the show to draw inspiration from.
In Arrow, Stephen Amell's Oliver Queen always displayed visible effort whenever he snapped someone's neck. As a matter of fact, one his first on-screen kills was executed with the exact method I was about to use.
Positioned on the oblivious techie's left, I looped my arm around his neck from the front and bent his body backwards. I clenched my biceps and dragged him away from the desk, my foot catching and lowering his falling chair.
Confused and horrified, he kicked his legs in the empty air and clawed at my invisible arm, his scared expression directed at the ceiling. I wasted no time and tightened my grip, squeezing my arm and feeling his neck give way to my strength.
Crack!
His body went slack that instant, his limbs drooping like strained noodles. I lowered him, noting how it seemed easier to kill now than the first and second times.
Equal parts relieved and equal parts disturbed by that development, I maintained my focus and crouched next to the cooling body, placing my palm on the vest and enjoying the cool metal on my fingers.
With a simple thought, I shunted the article into the system, where a description was generated for it.
Name: Militech M-78 Revised Tactical Vest (Modified).
Rating: Originally SP-12. Plate attachments enhance to SP-18.
SP-18 meant this vest could stop most rifle rounds. My armor hunch proved right, yet, I wasn't any happier.
Casting a complicated glance at my victim, I muttered a "sorry" and went to work on the latest piece of loot. The techie wasn't a small guy. But he wasn't big either. He had some meat on him, definitely, but he was nowhere near my level.
If I wanted his vest to go past my ox-wide shoulders, I needed to do some size modifications on it. Thankfully, the system having my body measurements made the increase in scale a simple but accurate endeavor.
A few definitions and a mere negative 5 points later, my upper body was covered and protected by the tweaked vest.
I stood up and patted it down with both hands, the comfortable and form-fitting definitions making its direct contact with my skin a distinctly pleasant experience. It was also thin. Impossibly so for something that could stop rifle bullets from penetrating my flesh.
This didn't come as much of a surprise. My shallow dive into the Cyberpunk lore in my past life taught me a few things, one of them being the ridiculous nature of armor in this universe.
Major textile advancements had made it so that even flimsy apparel like lingerie or wife beaters could function on the same level as modern day Kevlar from my world. Because of this, even the most down on their luck, random civilians could have multiple layers of ballistic protection, and you wouldn't be able to tell.
For a hellscape like Night City, this seemed strangely appropriate and fitting.
'It's a dystopian fantasy alright.'
Now armored up, I approached the techie's workbench and gazed at the various knick-knacks on it. I moved on after failing to recognize any of the tech parts and peered through the glass window nearby.
I almost recoiled in shock, but I quickly remembered I was still invisible, nearly facepalming at the blunder.
There was a walkway outside the room. Below it was a large warehouse-sized space filled with a number of scavs engaged in various activities. I had found the rest of the targets. Now all I needed was a plan to end them.
No biggie.
There were 13 of them down there. Four sat around a table deeply engaged in a game of cards. Two were lost in braindances, completely oblivious of their surroundings. One of these two in particular writhed and moaned in his seat as a device shaped like a soda can gyrated on his crotch.
'He'll be the first to go.'
I frowned as I caught this random thought, disturbed at the ease with which I'd declared a person dead. Eager to get this "mission" over with, I shook my head and dismissed this worrying tangent my mind decided to go on.
Apart from those five scavs I just scoped out, there were others huddled in groups of two, lone ones either sitting by themselves or milling about randomly.
One of the scavs sitting by himself was a hulk of a man. His massive arms wrapped in the brown leather jacket he wore and his shiny metal faceplate meshed together to create a fearsome image. He sat with those elephant arms crossed over his chest, his stiff expression gray and glossy as the other scavs gave him a wide berth.
Whether this was due to his inviting appearance or the massive HMG resting on the pillar beside him, I would never know. Not that I was interested anyway. Right now, all I wanted was to get out of here.
So I chose the most simple and obvious path forward: taking advantage of my temporary invisibility to maneuver around and attack.
I turned around with a hard expression and settled my gaze on a table with weapons arranged on its surface. Assault rifles, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, knives and two separate boxes of grenades and ammunition sat there waiting obediently.
Any excitement such a sight would've elicited before failed to manifest. My actions were robotic as I swept everything into the system and made for the sliding door leading to the walkway.
Just like before, I found the tiny gap between the door and the frame, forced my fingers in there and pulled. The strangled creaking was loud and clear to me, but none of the targets below so much as glanced up to look at the commotion.
Emboldened and reassured of my plan's viability, I summoned the revolver and stepped out onto the walkway. I looked right and I looked left, finding the stairs that led down on the latter side.
I ignored it and crouched, tensing the muscles in my legs before leaping over the railing. I was airborne for nearly 2 seconds before gravity regained its hold on me. I landed with a thud, my knees not protesting or bending even a little bit.
A pair of scavs nearby—two men with their faces obscured by the signature fritzing mask of those in their "occupation"—went on with their hushed conversation like nothing had happened.
I treated them in kind and made a beeline for their leader. He was the most dangerous person here, and I wanted him off the board before I started. Well, technically I was starting with him but whatever.
Passing the revolver to my left hand, I patted the Militech HMG by his side and shunted it away. The giant of a man instantly noticed, but I could think faster than he could move.
In a smooth display of enhanced speed and coordination, I tossed the revolver back to my right hand, aimed it at the back of his turning head and squeezed the trigger.
All I got was a resounding "clang" for my efforts.
Unphased, I took a step back and fired again.
Shot after shot glanced off the enraged giant's cranium as I danced around him, my attempt to target his eyes blocked by his massive arm.
The other scavs were of course alerted by the commotion, even the one in the porn braindance. However, I paid them no heed and switched the revolver with the recently acquired HMG.
Its weight meant nothing to me as I pressed its stock against my shoulder, fingered the trigger, took aim and fingered the trigger.
Multiple tiny explosions went off in my ears as the enormous firearm bucked against my shoulder repeatedly, the immense kickback staggering me and disrupting my aim.
An adjustment of my posture and a quick planting of my feet later, I reined in the beastly weapon and finished tearing multiple new ones into the giant.
Moving away from the white colored blood pooling at my feet, I bounced my aim between the scavs nearest to me and mowed them down. Once they were reduced to mere or near corpses, my focus naturally shifted to the ones farther away.
My enhanced mind and perception worked at their absolute peak, making things in my eyes appear like a movie on -10x speed. This gave me ample time to note the spread out positions of the scrambling scavs and decide how to tackle them.
This experience brought to mind the answer Captain America gave when asked how he could dodge bullets. He said: "Oh that's nothing… I just see faster."
And now I could too.
Drawing an imaginary line that cut through each of the remaining targets, I kept firing and stepped forward, waving the machine gun like a pen and tracing this line. This "indiscriminate" fire went through most of the scavs, downing some of them and clipping a few.
Unfortunately, it missed the two who were at the end of the line, the concrete block they ducked behind eating the bullets for them.
Quickly readjusting this invisible path, I waved the machine gun in the opposite direction and swept it back and forth, finishing off the scavs I tagged in my first sweep, quickly reducing my targets to just the two behind cover.
Laying down suppression fire, I advanced on their position, tearing chunks out of the concrete they hid behind.
I ran out of ammunition before I reached them. After a brief glance at the now lighter machine gun and its smoking, red hot muzzle, I switched it for my trusty revolver and maneuvered to join them behind their cover.
The sight I came to shocked me momentarily. The two men both cowered on the ground, their rifles held close to their chests as they trembled like boys bare chested out in the cold.
'These people know how to be afraid?'
I didn't know why that surprised me. I guess, I assumed people of their caliber, those who kidnapped others to strip them for parts, had to be a certain way. More hardened. More cruel... I guess.
Watching them shake like frightened children made me recall the brutal nature of the path I'd chosen. Whether these scavs were detestable scum or not, they were human just like I was. They had their own wills, dreams, goals, hopes and fears.
By taking their lives, I had ended their stories and placed indelible full stops in them, solidifying who they were up till their deaths as who they'll forever be.
As the one responsible for separating them from life's infinite possibilities, I hated this with every fiber of my being. I knew how it was to die. To permanently lose the ability to do anything meaningful ever again.
Luckily for me, I had regained this ability, and the first thing I did with it was to take away that of others.
Some would argue (myself included) that the world was a better place without scavs in it. And yes that would be true, but that wasn't the reason I killed them. Nor did I think doing so was right.
I did it because this hellish world demanded it. I did it because it was them or me… and I chose me.
I wasn't arrogant enough to think the world would adjust itself to fit my view of how it was supposed to be. No. It was the other way round. I needed to adjust to it. And I had done so, throwing away everything I believed in.
As a result, I had gained a tool that would eventually allow me to break free of its chains. A life where I would no longer bend to the world's whims but rather make it bend to mine.
Snapshots of such a future flashed through my mind, strengthening my resolve and easing my discomfort.
With a calm gaze and noticeably less hesitation than before, I took aim at the cowering men and fired two shots in quick succession.
The thumps of their lifeless bodies echoed throughout the silent space, solidifying my ownership of the Custom Made System.